


Sacrifices

by Celinarose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-04-20 04:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14252988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celinarose/pseuds/Celinarose
Summary: Wizards from all over Britain start disappearing after the war, and no one can figure out why. Until, Mandy finds out the hard way.





	Sacrifices

Mandy looked at the newspaper with a frown on her face. Another disappearance. Perhaps she was becoming a bit paranoid, but it seemed to her that they were growing more and more frequent. And yet the Ministry refused to speak about it to the public, merely saying that they were “handling it.” Mandy knew this was a lie. She was aware that the Aurors knew little beyond what was obvious. Things like that got around the Ministry quickly, even across different departments.

Her flatmate looked up from her plate of toast.

“Again?” she asked with a resigned expression. Mandy nodded.

“Who is it this time?”

“Hannah Abbott.”

Padma furrowed her brow.

“There has to be some reason, some... pattern,” she said. “Aside from the fact that they’re all in our year, of course.”

Mandy shrugged.

“I agree, but if the Aurors can’t find it... I don’t know. They think there might be some Death Eaters who were not recognised and therefore not arrested.”

Padma did not reply.

Mandy decided it was better to leave her alone and drop the topic. Padma had a tendency to get somewhat pensive when this was brought up. Mandy knew it reminded her that the War may have been officially over, but that was only in name. There were still groups fighting with each other all the time. The war was what had cost Padma her twin, and the fact that people still decided to continue, hurt her.

Mandy smiled at her friend and quickly picking up her bag, headed off for work. As she was walking to the apparition point, she began to think about what Padma had said. It was not a new idea, of course, but there was certainly some sense to it. What was common between Hannah, Neville, Lee, Cho, and Draco? All different houses, different jobs, different families. The only thing she could think of was that they all had their loyalties lay with the Light Side. They had all fought against Voldemort. Even Draco Malfoy had switched sides in the end.

But, there had to be something else. She turned the idea of being the one to look for that  _ something _ , around in her head for the rest of the day, hardly being able to focus on the tasks that were assigned to her. Perhaps she could ask for help. She hardly knew most of the people who were higher up, like Harry Potter, but there  _ was _ someone she ask...

When she walked back to her apartment that evening, she found the lights shining through the window. Padma must already be home, she realised. She stepped inside and slumped down on her couch, closing her eyes wearily. It had been a long day.

“Oi!” Padma called out to her with a little laugh. Mandy opened her eyes and turned to her.

“You can’t go off to sleep now!” Padma said, smirking. “You have a date, remember?”

“I do?” Mandy asked, utterly confused. Then she remembered. Padma, the matchmaker that she was, had convinced her boyfriend Theo to find Mandy a blind date. Which happened to be today. Mandy groaned. She wasn’t sure she was looking forward to this.

Nonetheless, some persuasion and coercion later, she found herself sitting at a table in the designated cafe, wearing a dress that Pansy had somehow transfigured from a simple affair of green chiffon to an extremely elegant one. If nothing else good came out of this date, she would at least have the satisfaction of looking nice.

She felt like she had been waiting for longer than the five minutes that her watch showed, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning to see who it was, she suppressed a gasp. Pansy Parkinson herself, decked out in a shimmering dress of gold. Of course Theo had set her up with Pansy, knowing she had liked her for quite a while now. She made a mental note to thank him later.

She didn’t exactly get a chance that night, however. When morning came around, Mandy awoke to an unfamiliar bed and sunlight streaming on her face. Pansy had already left, informing her as much and apologising for it, with the help of a note beside the bed. Mandy grinned foolishly, holding the note to her chest.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_ “Are you sure?” Mandy asks, her voice growing more panicked by the second. _

_ “Yes,” says the voice on the other end of the phone. Mandy frowns worriedly, before replying to Theo with a quick “I’ll be there.” She grabs her bag and heads towards her boss’ office to tell him that she will be leaving early.  _

_ She decides that it will be the quickest to travel the Muggle way. Her phone buzzes again as she is sitting in the cab. She looks at it, hoping it will be some news from Theo, but it is simply a message from an unknown number. An address and a time? Why would someone be sending her an address? _

_ “Come alone, if you want your friend back” says the next text. She is completely taken aback for a moment, and considers calling Pansy, or perhaps Theo. Then, she decides against it. If the person texting her is indeed the one who is behind all of it, it is better to not make them angry. _

_ She tells the driver to turn around and head to the new destination. Silently, she hopes Padma is alright. No one had ever spoken of receiving texts after those mysterious disappearances, so perhaps this time it would be different. Perhaps she would find her. _

_ The address she has been given, she finds, is an old, rundown Muggle warehouse. As she steps in through the crumbling door into the darkened room she immediately realises that there are expansion charms on the place.  _

_ “Hello?” she speaks loudly, and the room echoes. _

_ “Amanda Mary Brocklehurst. Welcome, to our humble abode,” a voice echoes from the shadows, sounding oddly familiar. _

_ “Who are you? Is Padma alright? How do you know my middle name?” she asks, as she hears the sound of heels coming closer. _

_ “You ask a lot of questions,” comes the reply, even as the figure steps into the light. Mandy gasps in shock. _

_ “No,” she whispers, unable to form words. _

_ The person across her smirks. _

* * *

  
  


Mandy sighed. They had been working on this for so long, and had managed to achieve absolutely nothing. Hermione was still working at it with a dogged fervour, but Mandy herself was very close to giving up.

Despite the fact that the idea had been her own, she wasn’t sure if she would find any more clues or leads. In all honesty, part of the reason she had decided to do this in the first place was because she couldn’t bear to sit and do nothing. And yet, it seemed like she was doing nothing else but that.

Hermione was more determined, however, and in a way, Mandy was glad of it. She would have given up long ago if it hadn’t been for her friend. 

She turned back to her books. They had decided to focus on trying to find any creatures who were active a few weeks before the full moons, which was when the disappearances seemed to be happening. Hermione, on the other hand, decided to check for any records on werewolves and people attacked by them, just in case. While it seemed like a plausible path to Mandy, she still doubted the two of them could find anything of use.

Mandy turned to look at her watch and swore. She would be late for work. Telling Hermione as much, she headed off to her destination. She couldn’t afford another lateness that week, she reminded herself as she hurried.

Rumors spread quickly in the Ministry, and so when she first heard it, Mandy was not sure she believed it. But soon enough, nearly everyone began to work themselves into a frenzy  about war hero Hermione Granger disappearing, and Mandy began to worry.

Surely it wasn’t possible? They had only spoken that very morning and Hermione had been perfectly fine. Just to make sure, she quickly sent an owl to her, and for good measure, texted her too, despite knowing Hermione rarely carried her phone.

Five anxious hours later, she still had no reply, and she had taken to pacing the floor of her office.

* * *

  
  


_ "I trusted you!" she cries. Pansy laughs cruelly before stepping closer to the figure crouched on the floor. _

_ “Why? Did you think I had really changed?” _

_ Mandy does not reply, looking away from those dark eyes that she had loved. Love, she now realises, is not an emotion the other woman feels for anyone, except, perhaps, herself. _

_ It turned out to be a lie, a ruse, and Mandy had fallen for it, fallen for  _ her _ , like the fool that she is. _

_ “Why did you do it? All those people?” she asks, her voice turning from sad to slightly defiant. She still finds it hard to believe, but if she is to die here tonight, at the hands of her own girlfriend, she might as well have answers before she does. _

_ Her question is met with a laugh and Pansy, who was towering over her, turns towards the back of the room, which is rather unlit. _

_ “Sisters,” Pansy calls out. It is a command, more than just a word. Mandy’s eyes widens at the sight that greets her next. The creaking noise and the sound of footsteps tells her there are probably stairs at the back of the room, and from that darkness, emerges a file of women wearing robes of a kind Mandy has never seen before. The blood-red colour of their cloaks, lit by the dim light, adds a certain eeriness which makes Mandy shudder. She gasps as they draw back their hoods and she sees some familiar faces. _

_ “Do you remember what you learned in Magical Creatures?” Pansy drawls teasingly. Mandy looks up at her, confused. The Slytherin laughs. _

_ “Of course you do. Tell me,  _ Amanda, _ what do you remember of hags?” _

_ Saying so, she removes what Mandy assumes is her glamour. Her ‘sisters’ follow suit. _

_ The face that is revealed is something similar to what Mandy has seen in Muggle storybooks, and her own textbooks. _

_ “You-You’re a…” she begins, unable to continue. _

_ “A hag. That is what we are called, isn’t it? I don’t like the name much, myself. Sounds almost crude. But well, it is what it is. These are my sisters, what Muggles would call a ‘coven.’ They are not quite far off about us, you see, even if the Wizarding world hasn’t quite caught up. Possibly because we prefer to keep it all under wraps. Only this time, we couldn’t, you see.” _

_ “But-but all these years, how did you manage to keep up your glamour?” _

_ One of the other women-or rather, hags-standing some distance away, snickered. _

_ “It is hardly a glamour; merely one of our many faces. You have so much to learn yet, my dear. So much, about us. I’m so glad we have enough time, because I have some brilliant plans for you.” _

 

* * *

  
  


“There’s hardly anyone left,” Padma said, quietly.

“I...know,” Mandy replied, her own voice equally low.

They had failed. No traces of the culprits had been found and every other month more people simply kept disappearing. The list kept growing until it encompassed almost everyone from their year. It was utterly hopeless to do anything but wait for it all to stop now. The Ministry had even issued an order that anyone who fought with Harry Potter in the battle of Hogwarts ought to be on alert. It was mandatory to use wards on every door and the streets had to be deserted at night.

It was worse than the war itself, that state of constant fear. Mandy and Padma both fit the criteria, of course, so they were not safe themselves.

Mandy had given up on trying to search for the cause of the missing people soon after Hermione’s disappearance. It had hit too close to home, and at the end of the day she did not want to endanger herself or her roommate.

Her only ray of sunshine through those days had been her girlfriend. Mandy didn’t know what she would have done without her. Pansy herself was technically out of the running, since she hadn’t exactly sided with Harry Potter, but Mandy still insisted on making sure she followed the Ministry's instructions anyway.

“I can’t lose anyone else,” she had told Pansy through tearful eyes. The latter had hugged her and told her she would never lose her.

“I’ll stay with you forever,” Pansy had promised, in a moment of uncharacteristic sappiness.

Mandy had smiled, a weight lifted off of her heart.

Perhaps it could all work out fine after all. Perhaps.

 

* * *

 

_ It hurts. The pain is all that Mandy can register through the haze that her mind is in. Sometimes, she even hears the echoing laughs of her tormentors or the screams of her fellow prisoners. For that is what they are; prisoners to all those people who they had supposedly wronged. _

_ That was the reason Pansy had given her, at any rate. Evidently, a lot of the Death Eaters had been members of the coven, or related to them. The sisters were simply angry, no, furious, and hence they were avenging their fallen. _

_ In the beginning, Mandy had decided trying to reason with Pansy might work. Surely, all of their moments could not have been an act? She was wrong, she soon found. Pansy was heartless, completely stone cold. She would not be budged, and even took some kind of demented pleasure in whispering in Mandy’s ear, as if they were lying together, contentedly, in bed like they used to, and not in her tiny cell with wave after wave of painful curses and hexes hitting her. _

_ The days and nights begin to blur together, and nearly every waking moment is pure pain. Sometimes, on good days, she still hopes that someone out there, Aurors, the Ministry, anyone, would still be looking for them. But then, her jailers would come back and remind her otherwise. _

_ When Pansy shocks her by arriving at her cell alone one day, Mandy knows it does not bode well for her. _

_ “I’m sure you’re wondering why I am here,” Pansy says, looking at the expression on her bruised face. Mandy doesn’t grace her words with a reply. _

_ “Let me tell you a secret, darling: Hag magic requires a blood sacrifice. We must make one of those on a full moon every two months. It must be done by the leader of the coven.” She pauses before continuing. “The next full moon is...tonight.” _

_ Mandy looks up quickly, completely startled at the announcement and its implications. _

_ “Oh, yes. I see you’ve figured it out. You’re going to be one of the sacrifices this time. We need more than one to sustain all of us, of course. Most of your little friends have already served their purpose. You’ll soon join them. Now isn’t that good news, love?” _

_ Mandy flinches at the last word and the way it is said. Tears are running down her cheeks now. She knows that dying will mean an end to all the pain, but she is sure her death wasn’t going to be an easy one. The moonlight is already streaming in through her tiny window, and she knows she doesn’t have long. _

_ Pansy is holding an ornate knife, she realises. Mandy doesn’t pull at the chains holding her back as her former girlfriend approaches her. There is no use, she knows from experience. _

_ The smile that Pansy has on her face sends chills down Mandy’s spine as she asks herself, for perhaps the hundredth time, how she could have fallen for her. She notices that Pansy’s eyes are still the same chocolate brown she remembers, even if her face looks different. _

_ As the knife plunges into her chest causing searing pain, Mandy closes her eyes tightly, glad, in a way. After all, how many were lucky enough to stare into the eyes of the one they had once loved, one last time? _

**Author's Note:**

> For the HP Horror Fest 2018!
> 
> Prompt: Hag magic requires a blood sacrifice.
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing this. I hope I did the prompt justice!
> 
> Thank you to my beta Z for reading through this!


End file.
